Detects the Babar Malware used in the SNOWGLOBE attacks - file babar.exe

Hunt Hypothesis

The Babar Malware, associated with the SNOWGLOBE attacks, is being executed via the file babar.exe, indicating potential lateral movement and data exfiltration. SOC teams should proactively hunt for this behavior in Azure Sentinel to identify and mitigate advanced persistent threats before significant data loss occurs.

YARA Rule

rule SNOWGLOBE_Babar_Malware 
{

    meta:
        description = "Detects the Babar Malware used in the SNOWGLOBE attacks - file babar.exe"
        author = "Florian Roth"
        reference = "http://motherboard.vice.com/read/meet-babar-a-new-malware-almost-certainly-created-by-france"
        date = "2015/02/18"
        hash = "27a0a98053f3eed82a51cdefbdfec7bb948e1f36"
        score = 80

    strings:
        $mz = { 4d 5a }
        $z0 = "admin\\Desktop\\Babar64\\Babar64\\obj\\DllWrapper" ascii fullword
        $z1 = "User-Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSI 6.0;" ascii fullword
        $z2 = "ExecQueryFailled!" fullword ascii
        $z3 = "NBOT_COMMAND_LINE" fullword
        $z4 = "!!!EXTRACT ERROR!!!File Does Not Exists-->[%s]" fullword
        $s1 = "/s /n %s \"%s\"" fullword ascii
        $s2 = "%%WINDIR%%\\%s\\%s" fullword ascii
        $s3 = "/c start /wait " fullword ascii
        $s4 = "(D;OICI;FA;;;AN)(A;OICI;FA;;;BG)(A;OICI;FA;;;SY)(A;OICI;FA;;;LS)" ascii
        $x1 = "SOFTWARE\\Microsoft\\Windows\\CurrentVersion\\Policies\\System\\" fullword ascii
        $x2 = "%COMMON_APPDATA%" fullword ascii
        $x4 = "CONOUT$" fullword ascii
        $x5 = "cmd.exe" fullword ascii
        $x6 = "DLLPATH" fullword ascii
    
    condition:
        ( $mz at 0 ) and filesize < 1MB and (( 1 of ($z*) and 1 of ($x*) ) or ( 3 of ($s*) and 4 of ($x*) ) )
}

Deployment Notes

This YARA rule can be deployed in the following contexts:

Microsoft Defender for Endpoint — Custom indicators / advanced hunting
Email Gateway — Attachment scanning
File Share Monitoring — Periodic scanning of shared drives
YARA CLI — Manual threat hunting on endpoints

This rule contains 15 string patterns in its detection logic.

References

False Positive Guidance

Scenario: Legitimate software update or patch deployment
Description: A system administrator is deploying a legitimate software update that includes a file named babar.exe as part of a patch or hotfix.
Filter/Exclusion: Check for the presence of a known patch or update tool (e.g., Microsoft Update, SCCM, or a vendor-specific tool) in the process tree or file metadata. Exclude files signed by a trusted vendor or associated with a known update mechanism.
Scenario: Scheduled backup or data migration job
Description: A scheduled backup or data migration task is executing, and the file babar.exe is being used as part of a legitimate data transfer or archival process.
Filter/Exclusion: Filter based on the process name (e.g., backup.exe, migrationtool.exe) or the presence of a known backup tool (e.g., Veeam, Acronis, or native OS backup utilities). Exclude files executed from a known backup directory or during a scheduled window.
Scenario: Administrative task using a renamed or aliased tool
Description: An administrator is using a legitimate tool (e.g., netsh, taskhost.exe, or wbemtest.exe) that has been renamed or aliased to babar.exe for internal naming conventions or to avoid detection.
Filter/Exclusion: Exclude processes that are known administrative tools or that match the process tree of a legitimate system service. Use process parentage or command-line arguments to identify legitimate administrative tasks.
Scenario: File integrity monitoring tool or endpoint detection tool
Description: A file integrity monitoring (FIM) tool or endpoint detection and response (EDR) tool is using a file named babar.exe as part of its own operations or for testing purposes.
Filter/Exclusion: Exclude files that are associated with known